Lost Generation, Elliott Murphy’s 1975 album, opens with some culturally heavy lyrics, sung in a provocative and jaded tone: “I remember when you were on the farm / dreaming about Andy Warhol / getting felt up in the barn / wondering if that’s moral.”
The song (“Hollywood”) goes on to reference Greta Garbo and James Dean in a savage attack on the illusion and artifice provided by cinema. And where was this particular album recorded? Los Angeles of course.
Two years earlier, Murphy’s debut, Aquashow, was released to what in today’s terms would be called a media frenzy of attention. Some call the album a lost classic, although it’s recently been re-released on iTunes. Murphy’s first attempt at Aquashow was scrapped after an aborted session in L.A., but he went bounding back to LaLa land for Lost Generation, which due to previous form must have been a bold move in itself.
Lost Generation is as a result musically informed by the West Coast sunshine. It’s mostly upbeat, and has a more country influence than its predecessor. However Murphy’s appetite for New York cynicism is undiminished, as he searches for answers as to why he’s feeling so let down.
Springsteen and Murphy have been much compared, and with good reason. Both were dubbed “New Dylans” in the ’70s, they were peers and friends, and they undoubtedly synthesize their heroes. But Springsteen does it mostly through the music itself whereas Murphy addresses what inspires him (or what is the source of his disillusionment) directly in his lyrics. In “Touch of Mercy”, Murphy sings about “thinking about Brian Jones and the final getaway”. and deliberates between being a Hemingway man of action or a more reflective Fitzgerald. The only answer Murphy can come up with is “mercy and a little touch of God”, but a Hammond organ swells in the background as if to say, the only solution is the music itself.
You could say it’s an unacceptable position to point at the comedown, the disparity between real life and the world created by the entertainment industry, while still glamorizing the very people in that world by mythologizing them in a rock song. Is Murphy just a name-dropper? He seems to have considered this himself. Perhaps unexpectedly, the literary Lost Generation itself is not referenced at all in the title track. Instead Murphy’s focuses on every day survival, doctors, police sergeants, Vietnam vets. The girl on the street realizes that “what she’s been seeing in the movies just ain’t the same.” The generation isn’t so much lost as can’t find its place, and God is dead with no divine being to divide the oceans.
The music just about keeps pace with the quality of the lyrics, but it has been said elsewhere that the session players don’t add a huge amount of character. It’s perhaps noticeable only because the ideas are extravagantly rich, from a commentary on how a nation became so enraptured with the cult of personality that it fell into the thrall of Hitler’s fascism (“Eva Braun”) to the corporate cash-cow of the music industry (“Manhattan Rock”). Murphy triumphs more easily in the personal, when describing a doomed romance in “History”. Similarly, “When You Ride” uses Western imagery and a sweeping melody with success to describe a declining relationship.
by Charles Pitter, 13 May 2014 
Tracks
1. Hollywood - 3:53
2. A Touch Of Mercy - 3:29
3. History - 3:03
4. When You Ride - 2:55
5. Bittersweet - 4:03
6. Lost Generation - 4:36
7. Eva Braun - 4:03
8. Manhattan Rock - 4:01
9. Visions Of The Night - 3:43
10.Lookin' Back - 3:38
11.Visions Of The Night (Instrumental) - 3:13
All songs by Elliott Murphy
Bonus Track 11
Musicians
*Elliott Murphy - Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboards, Piano, Vocals
*Bobby Kimball - Harmony Vocals
*Gordon Edwards - Bass
*Jackie Clark - Guitar
*Jim Gordon - Drums, Percussion
*Jon Smith - Saxophone
*Ned Doheny - Guitar
*Richard Tee - Keyboards
*Sonny Landreth - Guitar
*Wayne DeVillier - Keyboards
